Marcone in Love
by CHAOS REIGNS OVER ALL
Summary: Marcone is a gangster in Chicago, and he always gets what he wants. Now he wants the mysterious woman who has saved the little girl he has tried so hard to heal, but will he be able to pull it off?
1. Chapter 1

Not much surprised Marcone, however the tall graceful woman who had just walked in reduced him to numb silence as she bent over the unresponsive body on the bed. He just couldn't figure out why one of the fae had simply wandered into the hospital, much less this room.

"Poor child." Her voice was soft and musical but it's beauty passed unremarked in the anger that followed her comment. He couldn't help her, he had never failed before and it was hard for him to accept that something's couldn't be willed true. Not even The Shroud had helped, nor had prayer. Not that he had expected it to, men like Marcone didn't believe in God, or if they did didn't believe that He'd give a damn about them, he just couldn't bear to leave anything untried. The woman reached out towards the girl and his heart stopped. No! Thousands of stories of faries abducting children flashed through his head. They couldn't have her! He reached out, tried to at least, but he couldn't move. Only briefly though, in a competition of wills only fools and Harry Dresden went up against him. He grabbed the woman's arm and pulled one of his many knives out of a sleeve.

"Don't touch her." His voice was cold, this voice had caused grown men to wet their pants in the basic and correct belief that they weren't going to live long enough to be embarrassed by it.

"I wasn't going to hurt her." The woman slipped immediately into 'nurse comforting upset parent' mode. She apparently hadn't noticed the knife or the unmistakable threat in Marcone's voice.

"She's mine, fae. You can't have her."In any other man that tone would have been a snarl. In Marcone it was something infinitely scarier. The woman's eyes widened.

"You have the Sight?" The girl was instantly forgotten, a fact that made Marcone as close to happy as he ever was.

"A touch." He still hadn't let go of her arm, he didn't usually deal with threats by leaving them alive. Her eyes narrowed.

"What is this girl to you?" he heard the undertone in her voice, the subtle magic trying to convince him the girl was nothing, to go away, and forgot himself enough to growl.

"Stay out of my head." It was a statement. It wasn't even threatening.

"I'm only trying to help her." The woman finally seemed to realize that the person she was dealing with was about as far from a normal human as it was possible to get.

Marcone hesitated and his grip relaxed. The woman used this as an opportunity to reclaim her hand."It wouldn't do her any good just to be moved." His voice was flat and hopeless.

"I wasn't going to take her anywhere." The woman looked annoyed. "I was just going to heal her. Before I was so rudely interrupted." She glared frostily. Marcone didn't even bother to return it.

"Can you?" his voice was hungry but guarded. It wasn't possible, nothing had worked and this fae would randomly walk in and make it all better? Every logical bone in his body screamed in rejection of the idea, but they were drowned out by his memories of the almost-miracles he'd seen Dresden perform.

"I wouldn't be here if I couldn't." She drew her self up in the very picture of affronted dignity.

"Then do." He sat down and stared at her the same way a hungry tiger might stare at a human draped in steaks. If this worked he needed to have Dresden killed. He made a mental note.

She stared at him like she could hear what he was thinking. That is to say, like she wanted to run screaming out of the room. Then she gave her self a shake and bent over the body on the bed. There were no dramatic flashes of light, the girl didn't even sit up suddenly, but her hand twitched. That was more reaction than he'd seen from her in the ten long years he'd fought to bring her back. He rushed to the bed then paused, the only speech he'd ever had trouble planning was for this specific moment and now it was to late. Marcone felt like life had slipped it's leash and he didn't like it, but he liked the fact that the girl was waking up.

"Hello child." The woman spoke softly "You've been asleep a long time."

"Where am I?" The girls inflections carried a trace of the small child she'd never grown out of. "Where's Daddy?" Marcone's heart clenched. It was a day of unfamiliar emotions.

"Daddy's not here." he summoned every ounce of the cold business man he had always been before.

"Then I want Mommy!" Her voice went up a couple octaves.

"Mommy's not here either." can't feel anything, sort it out, ignore the emotions, they only get in the way.

"When are they coming?" It was a disturbing thing seeing the lost little girl in the teenagers face. the elf woman started to reach for the girl and he gestured her away. This would hurt her but it needed to be done.

"Your Daddy's not ever coming, and your mom probably won't either." Cold, he needed that now, he couldn't afford feel anything so he wouldn't.

"No!" The word burst out in a scream. "Your lying! You're a bad man!" she collapsed into sobs.

"Yes, I know." He considered comforting her but knew he didn't stand a chance of doing it well. He turned to leave and saw the fae woman draw her into a comforting hug. He felt a completely foreign emotion now, probably because he had sat his hormones down at puberty and gave them a stern talking to. Nothing defied Marcone when he gave it a stern talking to. He shook his head, he'd already planned what he would do if the girl ever woke up and now it was time to put it into motion. He moved to the front desk.

"The patient I was visiting woke up." The nurse about jumped out of her skin at the sound of his voice.

"I-uh-what? Who were you visiting?" She scrabbled for some semblance of professionalism.

"The Jane Doe in 204." He was the perfect mildly concerned visitor.

"What?" The look on her face could have been next to the word surprised in a dictionary. To her credit however she immediately bustled off to go take care of things, Marcone followed.

If this was a movie this scene would be filled with snapshots of bustling doctors and nurses one really confused coma patient and Marcone looking for the woman who'd healed her. It would end with one of the doctors taking Marcone by the arm and leading him out which would be when the sound would come back.

"Sir, I appreciate that you are a very private person," None of the doctors knew who exactly Marcone was, but they all knew that something unspecified and unpleasant had happened to the last employee who tried to find out. "However, I am aware that you visited the girl in there quite often, and as it seems she has no parents, I'm afraid I must ask, if you intend…" Marcone cut him off.

"I will be adopting her of course." the doctor swallowed hard.

"Wonderful. There aren't many people like you left sir, I'll admit that I had my hopes for you." he fell into his professional smile with ease. "If you would come with me we can just get the paperwork started. I wouldn't be surprised if it's all sorted before she can be released."

"Of course. We wouldn't want any hint of nefarious goings on to taint this fine hospital." Marcone's smile would have made sharks whimper in fear, and the doctor swallowed again.

"This way then sir." He walked towards his office, Marcone at his side.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been almost 15 years since anyone asked Marcone to fill out papers. He was not enjoying it at all, a fact not at all helped by the way he didn't know the girls name and every time he tried to ask her she started screaming about 'liar, liar, pants on fire.' when a nurse had finally calmed her down and asked her she couldn't remember so he was stuck trying to think of a name for her.

"Charlotte." he finally said.

"Sir?"

"We don't know her name so we'll call her Charlotte." He wrote it into the gap and finished off the rest of the paper work. "I'll send some people for her later today."

"Sir you can't just take her! She's been in a coma for years, she'll need extensive care. Even if she didn't the papers haven't even been processed yet!"

"I will send some people for her later today. One way or the other she will leave with them. I would of course prefer your complete cooperation, but it is not necessary." Every person in the room would remember that he glared at them while saying this, but that just wasn't true, they were just terrified.

Marcone made some arrangements for the girls care, but decided to make the last of them in person.

"Dresden." He really loved that look, Dresden never let on that he was afraid, but his face would twist into a classic 'why me' expression. "I have something I need you to do." He braced for the onslaught of 'I'll never work for you' that Dresden was prone to. Really a pity to, they were so similar it wouldn't take much to make him into a highly effective bodyguard.

"Doing what?" Marcone was surprised enough to blink. He turned to Hendricks.

"Go get the car, we're in the wrong place."

Dresden rolled his eyes. "Or maybe the right person is five months behind on his rent and is desperately hoping that you need him to find that hundred bucks you lost in the couch the other day." Dresden was the only person who'd ever dared to give him that kind of lip.

"No. In fact I have something to discuss with you." he again turned to Hendricks. "wait outside." the man left instantly, most of his people knew better than to argue with Marcone.

"Private matter?" Dresden actually slipped into something resembling business-like.

"You could say that. I have someone I want you to watch, and another person I want you to find."

"Someone rip you off?" Dresden seemed amused at the possibility.

"No, I could handle that. Someone did me a favor." he hated that word, hated owing people anything. "Do you remember the shroud?" Dresden rolled his eyes.

"Of course I remember, oh, the girl?"

"Yes, someone managed to wake her up. A fae woman walked in and healed her." Dresden choked.

"A fae?! That's-No-They don't-That's impossible!." Dresden probably had no idea that his sputtering had saved his life. Marcone had been a wee bit pissed that Dresden hadn't informed him that the fae could help heal the girl. Just a wee bit.

"Hardly impossible since it did happen. I want you to find the woman." He pulled out a small Ziploc with a few strands of brilliantly blonde hair inside, that he had managed to pull off Charlotte's hospital gown.

"That's, I don't think I can." Dresden shook his head. "The fae are difficult to track, what with not living in the human world and what not. Not to mention that trying to track them pisses them off and they don't get mad, they get cursy."

"I just want you to try. I'll pay triple your usual fee." Why did he want to see her again so badly? It was even throwing off his usual negotiating strategy, well, not much, but he could hear the edge of desperation in his voice. Dresden opened his mouth to protest, and Marcone held up one hand. "Even if you don't take that job I want to hire you as a bodyguard for the girl."

"Why? It's not like you don't have other bodyguards that would do as good or better a job as I would." Dresden's voice was cold and suspicious; he didn't trust Marcone for some reason.

"Any of the bodyguards I could trust not to frighten her are busy with things I can't afford to pull them off of. Understand, if you take the job, it would only be to protect her and take her places she needs to go." Dresden was conflicted, he wanted to protect the helpless, in fact, if his life had taken a different path, he and Marcone could have met as rivals. Yet he had a surprisingly rigid moral code and he knew it. That was what scared him about Marcone and he couldn't suppress the screaming heebie-jeebies at the thought of working for the guy.

"She needs protection, but more importantly she needs a teacher." Marcone knew that Dresden wouldn't let a six year old in a teenager's body just wander around with the type of people he figured worked for Marcone. "She's been in a coma since she was six, and that is the mind she currently possesses. Your duties would mostly be to take her to the playground and watch her, to help her grow up. There should be very little danger, but I prefer to be safe rather than sorry." Dresden nodded.

"If you ask me to do anything outside of those duties I can quit?"

"At your discretion."

"Fine then and I'll give finding your mystery fae a try. Now, my fee for watching the girl…"

"Your usual, plus expenses. I trust you are intelligent enough not to buy her everything she asks for, so I'll provide you with", Marcone paused, Dresden would probably wipe a credit card. "Some cash each day, and a checkbook in case of a large purchase."

"Sounds fair. I can't promise anything about the woman", there was a questioning tone to his voice.

"Bill me for your time, successful or not. I'm sure I can trust you." Marcone smiled his shark grin and stood up. "If you'll come with me I can introduce you to Charlotte now, and you can begin tomorrow at nine."

"Sounds good to me." Dresden stood as well, then gestured to Marcone. "You first." They both grinned briefly then left the room side by side.


End file.
